Eight years ago, an enterprising Baltimore Sun reporter asked the U.S. Geological Survey in Virginia to locate the halfway point between what was then PSINet Stadium in downtown Baltimore and FedEx Field in Landover. The goal was to determine the line of demarcation, or football's version of the Mason-Dixon Line, separating the Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Redskins.

They landed on a bar in Odenton, in Anne Arundel County.

Folks in those parts, however, didn't need a survey to tell them whose side they were on. They're with the Ravens. Same goes for Baltimore, Baltimore County and all the counties north of the city.

A trip down Interstate 95 and around the Capital Beltway into Prince George's and Montgomery counties lands you in Redskins territory, where Escalades fly flags of burgundy and gold.

The survey had been a noble attempt to draw a tangible divide between the teams and comes in handy as a talking point as the Ravens and Redskins prepare for their fourth-ever regular-season confrontation tonight at what is now M&T Bank Stadium, in Baltimore.

But the survey fails to take into account an area where the laws of football fan physics break down, the gravity-free, interstellar space that is Howard County.

The mission directive from my editor appeared simple and diffuse enough: Gauge the intensity of Ravens-Redskins rivalry in the county. He didn't request a geological survey or use of any other scientific method. So I figured he wanted me to bar hop.

What I found upon arriving at Sonoma's Bar & Grille in the Owen Brown Village Center on Sunday, Nov. 9, however, shocked me. The Redskins had the week off, but the Ravens were down in Houston decanting a carafe of whupass on the Texans. Yet, outside Sonoma's taking a cigarette break were six football fans in Pittsburgh Steelers jerseys.

The week before, the Redskins had been embarrassed when Steelers fans bought up nearly half the seats at FedEx Field and drowned out the home crowd in a nationally televised Monday night game. Had these people not yet returned from whence they came?

Once inside, I realized the Steelers fans were just a part of a mad free-for-all. Sonoma's has 17 high-definition televisions nailed up on its walls. Down below, on the barstools, were men and women in NFL gear of all colors.

"We've got New England fans, fans from Buffalo, Pittsburgh fans; people come in because I've got every game on," said Sonoma's co-owner Jerry Seidel.

Ravens fans, with their wings and cold ones, had set up at several tables throughout the room, but they were not a majority.

At the bar, Bob Crell, 40, of Elkridge, kept a lonely and futile vigil watching the only screen turned to the Detroit Lions game. That afternoon, the Lions had celebrated their 75th anniversary as an NFL franchise by announcing their all-time team and then gotten walloped 38-14 by Jacksonville to remain winless this season.

"You don't become a Lions fan, you're born into it," said Crell, who grew up in Detroit and had more than a bit of good ole Charlie Brown in him. "No one chooses it willingly."

Two weeks before, Crell showed up at Sonoma's with a brown bag over his head after the Lions had fallen to 0-6.

Richard Yost, 65, of Columbia, sat next to this forlorn character and was the only person in sight wearing Redskins regalia.

"In Columbia, you've got a Duke's mixture" of fans, Yost said, mysteriously invoking the name of famed Washington restaurateur Duke Ziebert. "There's a good amount of Redskins fans that come in, but this has strictly become a Pittsburgh bar."

Seidel said the Maryland Steelers Fan Club has begun to meet regularly at Sonoma's after a bar they had overrun in Baltimore shut down.

Asked what the atmosphere at Sonoma's might be like tonight, when the Ravens and Redskins meet, Mark Wheldon, 33, of Columbia, said, "I don't think it's going to be as bad as when the Ravens and Steelers play. We'll talk trash, but it won't be as much a rivalry. It is to me; it is a rivalry, but since we're not playing every year, it doesn't have as much importance as a division rival.

"I've seen a lot more Redskins fans up here than in Baltimore County," said Wheldon, a Ravens fan. "You've got to remember, Howard County is closer to being a D.C. suburb. But Howard bumps into Carroll County, and I know that's a big place for Ravens followers."

I turned back to the bar, and Crell had the bag over his head.

Football refugees

Both Ravens and Redskins fans suffer from abandonment issues. When the Baltimore Colts left town for Indianapolis under cover of night in 1984, the city went through the five stages of football grief: anger, confusion, sadness, remorse and hatred. More than 20 years later, the Colts are still booed when they come to play the Ravens, who, themselves, came into existence when owner Art Modell stole away from Cleveland with his Browns and set up shop in Baltimore.

The Redskins, meantime, left the cozy, creaking confines of RFK Stadium in Washington in 1997 for Jack Kent Cooke's monument to himself, the metallic behemoth in Landover that is FedEx Field.

These displacements and the transient nature of the Washington-Baltimore corridor, with its glut of government and military jobs, can fray allegiances of the less-than-faithful.

Asked how far south the Ravens market their franchise, team media relations director Chad Steele said, "That isn't something that is discussed in the media."

So, I headed over to Michael's Pub in Columbia, where Dan Harth and Joann Berberian, of Oakland Mills, were watching the Ravens game at the bar.

Harth, 47, had founded Ravens Nest 13, a fan club chapter, seven years ago at Michael's, but sat, arms folded, in civvies, while Berberian was decked out in a purple Ravens jersey.

The nest had flown the coop recently to Nottingham's, a bar on Stanford Boulevard, but Harth was content to continue roosting at Michael's.

"What happened was membership grew and the majority decided they didn't want the nest to be here, and so they moved," Harth said.

"They wanted only Ravens fans there," Berberian added.

Michael's, she said, like Sonoma's, is a bar that fans of all teams are welcome in. Asked what the crowd will be like in there when the Ravens and Redskins meet, Harth said, "It's going to be a big turnout here, probably mostly Redskins fans because most of the Ravens fans will be at the game. But I don't think there's as big a rivalry as some people think there is. If there is any kind of rivalry, it's a friendly thing."

I asked Harth and Berberian if they were a couple, and Berberian laughed and turned to the guy sitting on her other side.

"This is my husband," she said, tugging on the jersey sleeve of Scott Ewart. It was a Tennessee Titans jersey.

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user comments (1)

user beaujolais says...

I believe the line of demarcation is clear. The "Mason Dixon" line for separating Redskins and Ravens fans is to ask the fan whether his parents were married to each other before he was born. If he answers in the affirmative, he is a Redskins fan. Alternatively, if he possesses sufficient intelligence to understand polysyllabic words like "affirmative," he is likely a Redskin fan. If, collectively, a group of 10 fans has an IQ of about room temperature, they are Ravens fans.

Posted 9:13 AM, 12.08.08

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